On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 3:36 PM, <ghib...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Friday, April 18, 2014 1:36:43 PM UTC+1, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: >> >> The "causes schizophrenia" is correlation based conjecture. >> > > I think you are probably contextualizing this matter wrong. It isn't a > matter fundamental causation. That's really another matter entirely. If > someone has x probability of developing schizophrenia all being > equal, but 2*x probability if they happen to smoke a lot of pot. That's > causation in the meaningful sense here. >
You cannot infer causation because it could be reverse causation or there could be a hidden variable. In the reverse causation hypothesis, early schizophrenia traits would cause people to be more interested in smoking cannabis. In the hidden variable hypothesis, some other trigger (e.g environmental or genetic) would cause both a propensity for schizophrenia and to smoking cannabis. In both these scenarios, abstaining from cannabis would not improve your chances of not developing schizophrenia. This is the same mistake as concluding that playing basketball makes you taller. > > I'm not throwing a definite claim out, but so far as I am aware, there is > a significant connection with pot smoking. Correlation is good enough for > here. > But it's apparently not good enough for alcohol, nicotine and caffeine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181622/ > Who cares - and who knows - what the fundamental cause is, if cannabis is > a high risk for triggering it, where there are few other triggers likely to > have come in its place. That's a problem. Maybe society thinks its an > acceptable statistic. Maybe not. > What society thinks has nothing to do with it, because weak correlation-based scientific evidence is used selectively to create laws that were desired a priori by some interest group. > But it's the same problem in practical terms as if cannabis did cause it. > Same problem adjusted for whatever numbers. > > > > >> Not strongly convincing, because I bet all the subjects consumed sugar >> and were involved in variety of other behaviors and consumptions. People >> don't live in test tube and the results of questionnaires and tests of this >> sort should be taken with a large grain of salt. It's just easy science to >> make money with and get funds for, from appropriate interests. To be able >> to single out that it was the Cannabis in all these people's lives as >> exclusive cause, and not merely trigger of latent tendency, is too strong. >> You can say "we suppose, correlation, because reason x, sample size y". A >> lot of things can precipitate psychosis in patients that already have some >> preisposition >> > > > PGC you're an interesting arty author guy, to my eye anyway. But being > truthful, I don't see a lot of content here. You're asking to smooth and > normalize, and perhaps there's an argument that hey if we make people wear > trousers what are we going to force on them next. It's much more arguable > this would sit in the case-by-case bracket. I think I would also have to > question your use of correlation vs causation type argument. The correlate > is the major component in scientific statistics. A correlate is not nothing > PGC. > > > > > >> >> We're talking poison, so ghibbsa, you're barking up the wrong tree if >> you're claiming that some people claim it "innocent". But you're right: >> it's more the world that people live in than the poison itself. If your >> perspective is a dead end job of being mechanically exploited and underpaid >> below ability to survive and make a living, and no exit is palpable, then >> you have increased poison use; without that, I think we'd see more >> breakdowns, psychosis, and crimes happening. It is asking too much to >> expect that segment of society to function "properly" while being shafted. >> PGC >> > > I don't disagree. I had added that there wouldn't likely be enough to go > one way or another on cannabis. But again, I don't have a clear sense of > the distinctiveness of what you say here. The effects of drugs at the lower > strata of society, is or should be one of the major considerations. Because > it's there that we see community collapse, intractable criminality and > violence, and other serious problems, much of which is related to drugs. > Guy in the dead end job possibly not so much.......sadly people in that > sort of life seem to manage to keep their desperation behind their > bedsitter door. > > OK sure, part of my story...a long way back in childhood sees me > sensitized to segments of society that probably you are not, or are less > so. That alright, but it isn't a legitimate line of argument that alone. If > you don't think it matters...why don't you? If you think the damage is > reasonable, what do you know about it? If you think society isn't paying a > hefty price...really? What do you actually know about this matter? > >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.